Quest System
Since the game is called Everquest 2, you shouldn't be surprised that the game is focused on quests. In fact, after creating your character and entering the game world, the first thing you are faced with is a quest. EQ2 is rich with quests and you will find many one EQ2wikia in on pages that describe how to progress through them, such pages typically have Timeline in the name if you search for them and are frequently associated with specific zones or your characters adventure of tradeskill class. Finishing quests is one of the principle ways of progressing your characters in EQ2, so we suggest that you pick up every quest that you find, even if you don't work on them immediately. What is a Quest? A quest is a set of instructions, like a recipe. If you complete the instructions, you'll receive a reward. The instructions may ask you to visit a certain location, talk to a specific person, kill a certain enemy, find an item, or use an object in a certain way. Many quests require you to complete several steps. Some quests require you to complete their steps in a specific order, while other quests allow you to complete their steps in any order. The game automatically keeps track of your progress as you complete each step, and you can review the quest instructions at any time. Quest Rewards To put it simply, quests are the most rewarding ways of spending your time in Everquest 2. The rewards are numerous: * Experience and achievement experience. * Money. * Equipment or other items. You may get a choice of items from a list. * Some quests also improve your reputation with a certain faction. Starting a Quest To work on a quest, you must first receive the quest into your Quest Journal. You receive a quest by talking to an NPC (or, rarely, by inspecting an item in the world). A glowing feather floats above the head of any NPC who has a quest to offer you. If you open your map window by pressing the M key, you'll also see blinking orange circles showing the locations of all quest starters in your vicinity. To receive an NPC's quest, talk to the NPC by clicking on them with your mouse button. Notice that your mouse cursor changed to look like a chat bubble when you pointed at the NPC. EQ2 uses branching dialogue with chat bubbles, so click on your conversation choices until the "New Quest" window appears. The "New Quest" window shows you the level of the quest, a summary, and the reward that you'll receive for completing it. Quest Colors Beginning with GU65 (Chains of Eternity), the glow around the quest feather may be a different color, to help you quickly determine the type of quest. File:Quest_feather_green.png|Tradeskill File:Quest_feather_purple.png|HQ/Signature File:Quest_feather_blue.png|Repeatable Outleveled Quests Unless changed in the options window, the glowing feather is not shown for quests that are very far below your level. You can still pick up these quests and complete them for rewards, but you don't get a visual indicator to help you find them. If you don't want to miss any quests, you can enable quest indicators for outlevelled quests by changing a setting in the Options Window (Options -> User Interface -> Name and Chat Bubble -> advanced -> NPC Overhead Quest Icons for Outleveled Quests). Note: If you're doing quests that you've outlevelled, then you might be interested in the Path of the Past feature described below. The Quest Journal and Quest Helper When you accept a quest, it is recorded in your Quest Journal. Press J to bring up your Quest Journal. Here you can read a description of the quest, the reward for completing it, and track your progress through its steps. As you complete each quest step, it will receive a checkmark beside it, and the next step in the quest will be shown. When you've completed the quest and received its reward, the quest will be moved to the "Completed" tab in your journal. You'll usually have several quests in progress at the same time, so each quest will be listed in the journal. You can click on any quest in the journal to see its information. The Quest Helper In the top corner of your screen is your Quest Helper. The Quest Helper shows the current step in whatever quests are highlighted in the journal. When you do something to advance a quest, you'll receive a text message in the middle of your screen. Your Quest Helper will also show the update text for a few seconds, before going back to the quest that's highlighted in the journal. The Quest Helper can track more than one quest at a time. When you receive a new quest, it is automatically added to the Quest Helper, and you can add more quests to the Quest Helper by toggling them in the journal window. If your Quest Helper is getting too cluttered, then you can remove a quest from it by pointing at the Quest Helper and then unchecking its checkbox. Quest Journal Size Limit EQ2 lets you keep up to 75 normal quests in your Quest Journal at a time. In addition, you can keep an unlimited number of language quests and collection quests. If you run out of space in your Quest Journal, you'll have to delete or complete some quests before you can pick up any new quests. (Deleted quests can always be picked up again later, but you'll have to start them from scratch when you do so.) Quest Storylines :Main Article: Soloing Timeline Some quests are standalone, but a large number of quests in EQ2 are organized into linear storylines, which are completed in a specific order. These quest storylines are particularly common in the outdoor areas, but you'll even find some of them in cities and dungeons as well. Here at EQ2i, we previously call them "timelines", but EQ2 has recently added a new feature called the Storyteller to help you find and keep track of these storylines. To access the Storyteller, open your Quest Journal and click on the new "Story" tab. The Golden Path The Golden Path is a set of outdoor storylines that have been recently tuned and improved to give you a smooth, satisfying experience of levelling by questing. These storylines can be done on your own or with friends. You can always choose to quest in other zones, of course. The Golden Path is as follows: * Start in Kelethin, Neriak, Gorowyn or New Halas and proceed to level 20 there * Butcherblock Mountains for levels 20-32 * Steamfont Mountains for levels 32-42 * Lavastorm for levels 42-52 * Sinking Sands for levels 52-60 * Tenebrous Tangle and the rest of the Overrealm for levels 57-70 * Kylong Plains and the rest of Kunark for levels 67-80 * Moors of Ykesha, The Sundered Frontier and the rest of Odus for levels 77-90 An overarching storyline, called The Legend of Roger Goldie, guides you through most of these quest areas. The story begins in Butcherblock Mountains at level 20 and guides you through to a conclusion in Kunark. More Types of Quests We've already mentioned Quest Storylines. Let's describe some more types of quests that you'll run across. Collections :Main Article: Collection Quests While adventuring in the world, you'll come across the occasional sparkling light on the ground, labelled with a '?' question mark. This is a collectible object. Click on these "shinies" whenever you find them. The collectible will be added to your inventory. To add it to your collection, examine the collectible object (for example, by clicking on its name in your chat window after looting it). Collectable objects are categorized into collections. When you complete a collection, you can turn it in for a significant experience reward and (usually) an item reward. Completing collections is a great secondary objective in EQ2, and is an obsessive pastime for some players. There is a very large number of collections to be found in Norrath! Collections are a significant source of experience points and achievement experience, and can improve your character's rate of progress. To add a collectable to your collection, click its name in the chat window, or inspect it in your inventory. Your quest journal will pop up, showing any collections that the object can be added to. You can keep track of your collections on the Collections Tab in your quest journal. There are also special collections that are only available during certain Live Events. These "shinies" have a different colored glow (purple), but are also labeled with a '?' question mark. Another type of collections are Tomes, generally found in zones at level 20 and up. Tome pages are also found on the ground, but instead of seeing a "shiny", you'll see a flapping piece of paper labelled with a '!' exclamation mark. Pick these up when you find them. Finishing tomes will give you experience rewards just as with other collections, and you'll also end up with a book that you can place in your house. Creature Cataloging :Main Article: Creature Cataloging Timeline Not all quests involve killing creatures. Some just ask you to find creatures and make a note of them. You make a note of them by cataloging them. Catalogue Creature is an ability you receive the first time you accept a Catalog Quest. You'll find the Catalogue Creature ability in your Knowledge Book once you've received it. To catalog a creature, you must target a creature of the correct type and get within 15 meters, then press your Catalogue Creature hotkey to get the quest update. You can also do this while the creature is attacking you, although you might be interrupted. You obtain Creature Catalog quests by buying books from NPC merchants and reading through the books. See the Creature Cataloging Timeline for directions on where to buy Creature Catalog books. Lore and Legend :Main Article: Lore and Legend Timeline Books and other objects can be found in various locations that describe specific types of creatures. When read/examined, each creature mastery book will offer you a Lore and Legend quest. For example, The Precious Fairy Book found in Nektropos Castle gives the quest Lore and Legend: Fairy. The Lore and Legend quest asks you to kill more of the same creatures in an effort to learn more about them. Completing Lore and Legend quests gives you a Mastery spell or combat art which does large amounts of damage to that type of creature. The more L&L quests you complete, the more creatures the Mastery attack will work on. See the Lore and Legend Timeline for a list of what L&L mastery are available, as well as where to find them. City Tasks :Main Article: City Tasks Quests City Tasks are repeatable quests that reward you with Status points and improve your faction with your home city. Each of the five starting cities offers tasks, and most cities have several factions that each offers its own tasks. You can start on City Tasks at level 10. City Tasks will always send you to a part of the world that is appropriate for your current level. Most City Tasks can be completed on your own, but sometimes they will direct you into a dungeon instead. If you don't like the suggestion that you received, then delete the City Task from your Quest Journal and request another one. You can also pick up City Tasks from other cities that are aligned with your own. Each five-level-range has a large number of City Tasks to choose from. City Tasks are obtained from certain NPCs in your home city (or in overland travel hubs at higher levels). They look just like any other quest, with a feather icon above the NPC's head. City Tasks are designed to raise your faction with your home city, and to earn your guild experience, but they're also a great way to find new places to go adventuring. Each city faction has certain special status awards that can be bought from them once your reputation is high enough. These status awards include clothing, house items, mounts, prefix titles, and more. As for status points, if you belong to a guild then status points can be spent like cash on rent and mounts and so on. City tasks are just one of many quests that improve your faction in the world and give you access to special items. As you progress in your journey, you will meet many factions. Heroic Quests :Main Articles: Heroic Timeline, Heritage Quest Timeline, Signature Quests Timeline Heroic quests provide an interesting challenge for groups of players trying to figure out what to do or where to go. Unlike the quests of the Soloing Timeline, the Heroic Timeline quests are more loosely organized, and are more closely focussed on the dungeons of Norrath. Heroic quests require cooperation with other players, but also give you goals that you can complete together. There are a few special types of heroic quests that are worth mentioning: * Heritage Quests are all heroic or epic in nature, and are more difficult to complete than normal quests. The rewards are familiar items from the original EverQuest game. * Signature Quests are similar in scope to Heritage Quests, but the rewarded items are new to EverQuest II rather than being familiar items from EverQuest. Heritage Quests and Signature Quests are among the most rewarding quests in the game, in terms of both rewards and storyline. They are also some of the longest quests in the game. You could level an entire character focusing only on these quests, but most players will do a few of them in parallel with the rest of their quests. Questing With Friends Browsing Your Friends' Journals When you're grouped with others, your Quest Journal has an additional tab, called "Group". In the Group tab, you can view all of your groupmates' in-progress quests. A separate category shows you which quests are in common between the members of the group. You can use this feature when deciding how best to help each other with quests. Sharing Quests Quests that have no prerequisites can usually be shared with others. When you share a quest with another person, you're saving that person the trouble of traveling to the NPC who offers the quest. The recipient has to begin the quest from the first step, regardless of how far you've progressed on the quest (and regardless of whether you've completed it or not). To share a quest, just find the quest in your Quest Journal (in the Quests tab or the Completed tab), highlight it and and click the "Share" button. It'll automatically be offered to every member of your group that doesn't have the quest already. Path of the Past Missions You can temporarily reduce your current level to a lower one, thanks to Chronomagic. Through this feature, you can visit lower level places that you missed, complete quests and earn loot, and even take on special missions for those lower levels. A number of mysterious erudites have set up in Qeynos, Freeport, Neriak, Gorowyn, and Kelethin. Any player level 20 or higher can speak to them, and for a small fee, temporarily lower their adventuring level. This works similarly to mentoring except: * You do not need a mentoring target. * You can only choose levels in increments of 5 (10, 15, 20, etc). * You do not receive the bonuses granted from mentoring other players (currently you receive a very large bonus to AA gain while mentoring another player, this is not granted by the Chronomagic system). The chronomagic will last until cancelled (right-click on your nameplate or /unmentor). Once cancelled, you must return to any Timeless Chronomage to reactivate the effect Additionally, 37 new missions have been added. They task players with slaying various bosses within zones of all levels throughout Norrath. And, of course, these missions reward players with an array of exciting new items! To get a "Path of the Past" mission, talk to a Chronomagi Tasker in one of the starting cities. These NPCs offer missions similar to the Shard Missions, which send you to one of the instances in Norrath. You can ask assistance from a Timeless Chronomage to mentor you down to the level of that instance, so you can get experience and other rewards from that instance. Chronomagic works the same on PvP servers as it does on PvE servers. However, it also has all the same restrictions as mentoring—namely that you cannot engage in PvP combat while the chronomagic effect is on your character. This makes it quite a bit more dangerous on PvP servers, so good luck and be careful!